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The Esports Championship Series, a leading esports initiative founded by FACEIT and supported by Twitch, will launch season two of its ECS Counter-Strike league this fall. Following the format of the successful debut season, season two will include 20 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams (10 from North America and 10 from Europe). Season two of the ECS league officially kicks off October 7, 2016 and will conclude with the grand finals the weekend of December 8, 2016.

The Esports Championship Series will also host its first open qualifiers for teams interested in joining the ECS league. The open qualifiers will consist of four rounds in both Europe and North America beginning on August 5 and concluding on August 27. The winners from each qualifier round will join an additional four invited teams in each region’s ECS developmental league, with the top two teams in each region’s developmental league then facing off against the bottom two teams of ECS Season One in a nail-biting promotion match. The two winners from each region’s promotion match will then join the fellow eight teams from Season One to fill out each region’s 10 team roster for ECS – Counter-Strike Season Two. Teams interested in competing in the open qualifiers can sign up at the following links right now:

“The open qualifiers will provide new teams the opportunity to showcase their talent to the world and join our top CS:GO esports league,” said Michele Attisani, CBO of FACEIT. “It’s our goal to provide new teams a chance to be recognized in the community and become stars, while providing current ECS teams a fresh pool of talent to test their skills against.”

Season Two of the ECS comes on the heels of the successful first season, which took place June 25-26th at London’s legendary SSE Arena, Wembley in front of a packed audience of esports fans. The exciting finals matches of ECS Season One saw French team G2 Esports crowned champions after beating the former Luminosity Gaming lineup in the finals. On its path to the finals, G2 Esports battled to victories against Swedish powerhouse teams Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas, along with North America’s Team SoloMid.

Teams that qualify for Season Two of the ECS league will earn all the benefits of Season One participants, including co-ownership in the league and the opportunity to select representation on the league’s governing committee. The ECS will provide a collective $1.75M for Season Two that will go toward the league’s prize pool and supportive funds that will provide player stability. This includes helping organizations provide better salaries, facilities and equipment that will improve the overall conditions and welfare for players, while furnishing the ecosystem of the ECS with a more structured framework to operate within.

“The Esports Championship Series set out to provide players a league that offers a structured, stable framework, similar to mainstream sports,” said Niccolo Maisto, CEO of FACEIT. “The current $1.75M dedicated to Season Two of the ECS is only the starting point for our ECS initiative. As the league grows, so will the benefits to players and organizations within the league.”

ECS-CS Season 2 ScheduleOpen Qualifiers
Open Qualifier 1 – August 6-7
Open Qualifier 2 – August 13-14
Open Qualifier 3 – August 20-21
Open Qualifier 4 – August 27-28